Pakistan police rescue French woman and children allegedly held captive by husband for 12 years

Husband arrested after Sylvie Yasmina, 54, and five children found at home in north-western province

Pakistan police say they have rescued a French woman and her five children after she told authorities she had been held captive by her husband for more than a decade and subjected to years of domestic abuse in the country's north-west.

The woman, identified as 54-year-old Sylvie Yasmina, was rescued earlier this week from a mud-brick home in Bara, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, the district police chief, Waqar Ahmad, said.